CHAPTER III

All Quiet on the WesternFront

We believed the war was probably over. But you must realise that we lower rankswere only 18 to 19 years old. Our officers were aged between 24 to 29. Still youngsters!Life's deeper issues did not concern us too much. We were prepared to fight on.

SS-Corporal

Despite stiffening resistance, the Alliesbelieved that one more good push after thedebacle in Normandy would bring the wholecrumbling German defence edifice down.Due to the 90-mile ground dash required torelieve the planned three-divisional air-borne 'carpet', Allied planners began totake stock of the likely resistance theymight encounter. XXX Corps, spearhead-ing the assault, estimated in its intelligencesummary at the beginning of the secondweek in September that:

' . . . further back in the area of theriver Waal, about 200 88mm gunscould probably be switched from ananti-aircraft to a ground role. And aDutch resistance report of batteredPanzer formations sent to Holland torefit might be true . . .

'The enemy made no attempt atdivisional organisation in this period;transport, signals and heavyequipment were almost non-existent.Battle groups were formed fromregiments or from stragglers and werenamed after their commandingofficers; they varied in strength from100 to 3,000. Many went into battle soquickly that the men did not know thename of their battle group. Food and

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ammunition were short, but some ofthese groups fought with great and attimes fanatical determination.'

2

A microcosm of the situation in the Kampf-gruppe Walther. Not unusually, SecondBritish Army's intelligence at this time wascoming from the interrogation of capturedprisoners. Information about Arnhem, 55miles beyond the German front line, couldtherefore be expected to be fragmentary.First British Airbornes' intelligence sum-mary issued on 14 September, producedfrom information compiled by 21 ArmyGroup and XXX Corps, stated:

'Such reinforcements as have beenmade available have been put in tothicken up the line, and there is still nodirect evidence that the area Arnhem-Nijmegen is manned by much morethan the considerable flak defencesalready known to exist.'

3

The message that reached the troops whowere to conduct the operation is summedup by Private James Sims of the 2nd Battal-ion the Parachute Regiment, soon to befighting on the Arnhem bridge:

'Intelligence told us we had nothing toworry about. There was no armour in

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